Familiar Letters

and of integral condition and mind. I know what I am saying. For which reason I urge and wish that he be dear to your clemency and humanity, and that when you have tested him, you honor him according to his merits, whom you honored when you barely knew him. To which may be added whatever my faith and devotion deserve. I beseech you; for I consider myself honored in him, since he is more than half of my soul, just as you honor him. And this is enough. I hope indeed that without my solicitations and those of others, by your kindness and his own virtue, he will be found in the eyes of your holiness to have obtained the grace due to his merits.

However, for his honor, and because such a lord has happened to him as he can—nay, must—whoever prepares himself to serve his superiors, I desire that you opt for the highest state, conspicuous for kindness, mild by nature, abundantly generous in munificence, outstanding in mind and intelligence, and who does not look down on anyone with a crooked nose, as Flaccus Horace says, just as I congratulate you with my whole mind. I hope indeed by his virtue and probity to see ? my knowledge honored knowledge—which happens very rarely—honored for its merits. Farewell, most holy father. There are those who think that I displeased you with my first letter, which I would also fear, except that by answering nothing, I persuaded myself that you do not think I have previously offended you in anything. For it would be neither of humility nor of kindness to spare one who even slightly offends your highness. Florence, August 6.